Gem Life Chronicles
by Kartoffel-chan
Summary: My name is Rui, and I'm a reincarnated soul. I know this because I remember everything of my past life and my past death and everything that happened afterwards. Reincarnation is not what you may think it's like, it's actually very boring waiting in God's Waiting Room, and it's twice as terrifying to realize that you're now of very close relation to a fictional character. SI/OC
1. Chapter 1

Reincarnation is not what you may think it's like.

Some like to think that it's a reward or punishment for what you've done. That one moment you're dying and the next you're being born, or something along those lines, but it's not _exactly _like that.

Sure you die, but then you're taken away to wait until you are reborn. That's right, people may say that Florida is 'God's Waiting Room' and it couldn't be farther from the truth. The real God's waiting room is much like a doctor's office, only you know you're dead and everyone else [Or perhaps I should say, every_thing_?] is dead and it's hopelessly boring because there is no People or Us Weekly in the afterlife.

Some of the souls here wait longer than others, some show up and the next moment are sent out to their next destination. Some are given second chances to re-live the latest parts of their old lives, some are sent to Heaven or Hell and maybe even Valhalla or whatever. Others are sent to purgatory, and you know that they are since they have to walk through a set of doors, sometimes they are forcefully dragged or pushed through the doors.

The secretary is a kind soul, not human, though she may look it, she's not. She's just another one of Death's and God's employees, she takes on a form that would comfort you the most, to me she was a nice, brown haired blue eyed mid twenties human female with a bright smile and calm demeanor. Her name was apparently, 'The Secretary' and she was always willing to give souls candy or sudoku puzzles or some such nonsense to waste their time.

But like I said, magazines didn't exist in the waiting room since it was outside of time. It's sorta hard to explain but basically the jist of it is that years, months, weeks, didn't matter, and thus what would there be to report? You've already died, you left your world and don't need to know any more about it.

I swear that I waited there for like 5 years, never getting hungry or tired really, though I would sleep without realizing it, only waking when somebody shuffled close to me or someone's dramatics attracted my attention. During that time I saw people come and go before I did, but I wasn't too worried, after all there were people from all across time and space and realities who were there, some from the 1500's of my world, others even came from the far future.

Either way it was boring, but it also meant that when it was my time to be called through to whatever it is that happened I was beyond ready to just get this done and over with.

Turns out it is a lot like a doctor's appointment and job interview all rolled into one. Two figures, Death and God, made you sit on those odd doctor bed thingies, first with inane chatter as they took a 'check-up' on your soul. Some souls went through too much and couldn't be reincarnated, they would be sent on to Heaven or whatever after-life of their choosing, some souls were too tarnished and automatically sent to hell.

After that Death would ask you question in regards to your death, if you think you went before your time, if you needed extra counseling or if you thought you died in a 'proper way'.

God asked me questions about my life and went over events in my life explaining why some of things that had happened had, well, happened. And what I would like to have in my next life, seeing as I had already been approved of being reincarnated since my soul wasn't too damaged or frayed.

Then they told me briefly that my family and everyone and everything close to me was fine and how they had each reacted to my death, and I remembering crying and Death counseling while God just looked sadly at me. Then they began to prepare me for my new life.

They told me that they had plans for me, since my answers fit certain criteria for a certain type of living situation, warned me that I may or may not remember everything about my past life in my new one and that on the off-chance I did then it probably wouldn't take affect until I was 'old enough to remember'. They guided me to my set of doors, luckily not the set of purgatory doors, and then they slapped me on my forehead like in those V8 commercials and I was blissfully gone.

I was born on May 23rd, to a mother, a father, an elder sister and a grandfather. I don't remember my parents, but I've seen pictures and heard tales of them, they died when our home was attacked when I was almost 5 months old.

My grandfather ended up having to take care of us, not that he minded, he was a fairly 'young' grandpa, my parents having been only nine-teen when they died. He didn't even have any grey in his hair until I was around 7, and even then he was still youthful looking, handsome and I was so proud he was my Grandpapa. He was strong and kind, even tempered and just as stubborn as us two girls were, he made sure we were raised to be respectful and have manners. He worked as a baker in a bakery he had been running for the past 10 years, while my mother was still a child. He had to do most of the heavy lifting, but it was okay since he was pretty muscular. I loved the breads he made rather than the sweets, it always made him laugh at me when I would rather eat bread than cake or the other pastries and sweets he made.

My sister was very protective and adored me, often holding my hand anywhere we went. Whether it be just down the street or anywhere in the village, she always kept an eye out for me. It wasn't like she was that much older than I, about a year and a month maybe, still she loved being the elder sister.

We lived in a place I'm sure you'll know of called Konoha, well, that's the short title. And really, with just that I'm sure you can figure out how confusing this was for me when my memories came back, especially once I realized that my elder sister was none other than Konoha's future Weapons Mistress, TenTen.

And, no, our last names were not 'Higurashi' thank you very much, I have no idea where that came from but, it was something much better. It was Ueno.

As for me, well I was named Rui, Ueno Rui.

The first time I went to the Academy was when Grandpapa and I went to go drop TenTen off for her first day of schooling. I held hands with her all the way there, her sweaty palms in mine, not that I cared. I didn't really blame her for being nervous, she barely ate anything, not even the fresh youtiao(1) my grandfather had made that morning.

"I'm so excited for you TenTen! Your mother never wanted to become a kunoichi, it'll be nice to have a ninja in the family! You'll be the very first one!" here my grandfather paused and rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully, "At least I think so. It's hard to keep track of that kind of stuff all the way from back then!"

"Thank you, grandpapa. I hope the other kids like me!" she said, and tightened her hold on my hand. I furrowed my brow, anybody who didn't like TenTen was crazy and I would gladly beat their asses, even if I was only like 5, almost 6 years old.

"You'll be just great, Nee-chan! If anyone makes fun of you just tell us and we'll show 'em that you're awesome!" I said, fire showing in my eyes. Even before my reincarnation she was one of my favorites, alongside the rest of her team and Kakashi.

My sister giggled and poked my side making me squirm, "I'm sure you will! Just try not to start any fights when I'm not around! Especially with Keigo!" my sister scolded me as we made our way through the gates. I frowned, Keigo was pretty much our neighborhood's child bully, an 8 year old idiot who wouldn't know a kunai from a shuriken, he was _that _dumb. He seemed to think that just because he was related, albeit very very distantly, to the Daimyo that he was better than all of us. Too bad that I was so little or else I'd break his nose for sure...

"Don't worry, your big strong grandpapa is going to make sure our little Gem(2) here stays safe in the bakery until you come home!" My grandfather said patting my head with his gigantic paw of a hand.

Once Nee-chan was settled in we left, stopping to pick up a few things, mainly presents for my sister. I also got to pick out a book to read since it would be sorta boring at the shop, I would probably end up sitting behind the counter and occasionally making small talk with customers, and it made me curse the minutes until TenTen came home from the Academy.

Time passed, I ended up going to the academy with hopes of becoming a useful kunoichi the year after my sister did and I paled slightly at the class roster, that's right, TenTen was the year above the Konoha Nine, and I didn't really want to become one of them, thank you very much. My sister would already have her hands full, I would much rather just be a useful ninja to the village, not one of _them_.

Don't get me wrong, I had thought about going out of my way to change things to see if I could make things better for the people involved in the story, but then I realized that I was not a very lucky person, in the sense that when I reached out to do something it failed horribly, it was one of the things that seemed to transfer to this life from my past one. It seemed any time I tried to be heroic or dramatic it pretty much died and I almost always heard a "Wah-Wah" go off in the background when it happened so this time I just decided to go with, "Let's just be a useful background character that nobody knows."

Only thing being that while this was a real world, people still acted like anime characters, so I ended up coming off as kind of serious and an antisocial know-it-all. It wasn't my fault! I mean I was just taking my school work seriously, and if I was ahead in the 'civilian' studies department it wasn't my fault, blame fate. I didn't make many friends with the girls in my class since most of them were nothing more than fluff at the moment, Ino, Hinata, and Sakura were definitely included in that.

Sure, Hinata was a good girl and not as annoying, but she spent a lot of time being afraid of being right in her work, and it showed in her homework and it our class work and it drove me up the wall because I knew it wasn't her fault completely but still it was annoying. I tried to encourage her a lot before dropping back when I made her cry by accident and I really didn't want to push her too hard.

So, yeah, my academy years were pretty much spent with me studying and training in any spare moment I could, and at least it showed in my results. It helped that I had a slight edge to the competition because of my prior knowledge and of course TenTen was always available to help me if I needed it. The only people in my year who didn't care about my 'attitude' were Chouji, Shikamaru, Shino, and Naruto. Sasuke didn't care until it became clear that I knew my stuff, even when he didn't, which was not surprising seeing as he was an Uchiha with built-in mental issues.

My sister graduated and was placed on Gai's team, and for the first few weeks after school I would sneak up and watch them until Neji caught me and TenTen just looked slightly embarrassed when we were all introduced, either because her teammates were crazy or because I was the snooping little sister I didn't quite know. To be honest I was a little flustered meeting them all, it was completely bizarre but not because of Gai and Lee's 'Youthfulness' or Neji's...attitude. It was more like meeting a superhero in real life, I was completely taken in by Lee's determination, just as had in my other life, and Gai's passion for his students and teachings. I had actually teared up when one day I came to see Lee upset by his condition and because Neji had been an ass to him. I think I ended up scaring him more than anything as I broke down crying and holding him and whispering nonsense to him about how great he was and that he would grow to become even greater for like 45 minutes until Gai and TenTen came.

I still blush and duck my head in shame whenever I think about it.

It was also around that time that my sister was struggling with her dream and lack of ability to accomplish it. It was frustrating for everyone involved except for Neji since he couldn't give a rat's ass at the moment, even Gai appeared to be at a loss for a while until they stumbled on to the solution. I remember my sister coming home one day and being so happy at having found her new dream and her unique skills in sealing and weaponry and I was so proud of her. My Nee-chan was blossoming into a deadly flower and I shed tears of happiness to myself late at night for her. Seriously, she would become a legendary kunoichi, I already knew it, but still to live it with her, in a way, it was something else.

Myself on the other hand, well, I was still in the academy and studying more and more when Team Gai turned their missions less on D-ranks in Village to C-ranks and the like. I was lonely but I didn't care much, I always valued my family and those who I basically thought of as family above any sort of friendships, I had been hurt once to many in my past life over stupidity that I didn't want to stress myself out over something like that. If I wasn't home I was usually in the library or on an Academy level training ground, working myself to make sure that I wouldn't let anyone down.

Keigo was no longer my bully, having had beaten the snot out of him enough times for him to get the point, and instead he was replaced by most of my classmates, especially the girls who thought I was just showing them up so that I could my hands on 'Sasuke-kun'. Ami especially since I occasionally stood up for other victims of her bullying, Sakura mainly because I thought she was pretty, and honestly where was Ami and her two goons to talk about looks?! I mean have you seen Kasumi or Fuki?! Kasumi has an afro, AN AFRO. And Fuki always looked like she stuck her fingers into an electrical socket.

I mean, I was a cute little girl. I'm not being narcissistic but I was cute, dammit! I had the same dark brown hair my sister had, only I wore it in a side ponytail with a gold ribbon tied onto it, a gift from my sister, and large hazel eyes. I mean, c'mon! A few tweaks to how I held myself and I could make anyone into thinking that I was defenseless as a baby bunny! Ami looked like a samurai kid with no fashion sense, in fact pretty much all of the girls had no fashion sense, so I have no idea what planet's standards they were judging my outfit off of. It was a simple pair of brown pants that ended at the knee and a long sleeved green shirt with a black tank top underneath it for when it got too hot. Perhaps it wasn't flashy or revealing enough? I snorted when I thought of that, because obviously all of the girls in my class has slammin' bodies.

Today I was practicing my kunai and shuriken throwing mainly because it helped me calm down, graduation was coming upon us and I was wondering what was going to happen for team placements. I sincerely didn't want to be on Teams 7, 8, or 10, but only 33% or whatever actually passed from my memory. I was scared that even if I passed enough to get my headband if my teacher did some sort of teamwork test I might fail, not because I wasn't team player, but because pretty much everyone else was not. And it sucked! What would happen is we failed? Would we be sent to the Academy or would we be placed in reserve or something?! I brutally threw a kunai at the marked target letting the heavy 'thunk' soothe me a bit, and I paused to take a deep breath, I needed to stop making myself freak out so much. I stood still breathing in deeply letting my 'sense' reach out, it wouldn't do if someone in my class saw my acting other than the single minded know it all kunoichi, it would just bring me more dramatics than I needed or wanted.

As I was just taking in the area I sensed a powerful aura, yeah, aura. It was different than a person's chakra since it told me more than just where they were, how much chakra they had and nature, as I had read most chakra sensors felt. I could almost taste somebody's personality through their aura and I was empathetic as well, not that surprising for me at least. This weird sensing ability is something similar to the one in my past life, being able to sense spirits and stuff like that.

Go on ahead, laugh, but I'm not making it up. It sorta ran in the family on my mom's side. My uncle had always talked about 'the color people' when he was younger and as he got older he realized he was seeing spirits, or rather their emotions.

I didn't see color people, I saw people, and I saw shadows. I heard them too, and I once met a ghost when I was younger and had gotten lost in a store. I didn't realize he was dead until I went to thank him for helping me find my way out of the dead end I was in and he was gone, like poof type gone.

So yeah, it followed me in this life but just like in my past it wasn't something I focused too much on, it came to me whenever I needed it so why focus on it when say my combat skills didn't?

There was a rustle in the bushes behind me and I let my kunai loose in that general direction, hearing a yelp as it passed over whoever was there.

"C'mon out, otherwise I'll use you for target practice." I said bluntly turning to look at the bushes, which gave another rustle before someone leapt out of them like a wild hog.

"N-No, please don't do that!" The person said and I narrowed my eyes at them. Great, it just had to be Naruto didn't it.

"Well you came out so I won't." I replied sassily, roll of my eyes and turning on my heel included. Naruto seemed to relax slightly, and began patting the dirt off of him. Inwardly I cringed, I was completely happy to stay out of everyone's way, especially Naruto's since people always seemed to get dragged into adventure with him, ones that ended up escalating from simple to dangerous.

"So, why were you running around in the forest, Uzumaki-san?" I said as I went to retrieve my weaponry so that I could practice some more, lord knows it helped put me at ease.

Naruto seem to give his standard sheepish, "heh heh" while scratching the back of his neck before saying, "Well, I just sorta pulled a prank on someone and they were pretty mad so I ran! Why are you out here?"

I turned around and gave Naruto an amused look, "Just throwing tossing some kunai and throwing some shuriken." I replied smirking and shrugging my shoulders. Naruto gave me a look before saying, "But, isn't it kinda late, I mean it's dark already."

I looked up at the sky, sure enough it was, oh well, the targets were still visible to me, "So it is, feh, I'll leave in a bit, I can still see the targets. My grandfather won't mind and my Nee-chan is out on mission so~" I just sorta shrugged before tossing my kunai again and was calmed by the 'thunk' as it hit the center.

Naruto watched me throw a few more before he walked up besides me, "Um, you seem pretty good at that, so why do you keep out here so late? And at the academy too, you're like one of the best!" he asked and I looked over at him wondering if I really stood out in the class.

I sighed, "Well I do this because it helps to calm me. In fact, most of what I do calms me, makes me feel like I could be useful someday, that I'm not just doing all of this for show. That I'm prepared to be a ninja for this village, a lot of kids in our class aren't like that because they are mature enough to see what being a ninja really is all about it. The only reason I seem so good in comparison is because I'm one of the only ones taking it seriously, Uzumaki-san." I said truthfully and was surprised by how relaxing it felt to get it off of my chest for once.

Naruto was quiet for a bit until he seemed to brighten up, "Yeah, that makes sense! You're not like the other girls who go after that Sasuke bastard-" here I gave a quiet laugh, "and you're not mean or anything. Although there was that one time with Ami-"

"Well if she wasn't being such a brat I wouldn't have cut her clothes to shreds!" I said and blushed at my sudden outburst. I looked away hurriedly while Naruto laughed until he could only pant out, "Her face though!"

I looked down at my shoes twirling a kunai on it's ring while chewing my bottom lip nervously, how much was I altering by just this simple conversation? But I didn't want to stop because Naruto was actually nice, and his aura was golden and felt like a patch of ground that been left in the sunlight and it was comforting.

"Naruto," I said suddenly and the blond stopped laughing freezing at my tone, "I-I, just wanted to let you know that even though we've never talked or anything, you're really cool, and I wish you luck at the exams tomorrow." I said looking up at him bashfully, still chewing on on bottom lip nervously, kunai no longer spinning.

I didn't wait for him to reply before suddenly shouting, "And good night see you tomorrow!" and then running away like the coward I was.

I scolded myself on the way home, I wasn't going to be his friend, not one of his precious people because I wasn't made of the stuff all of them were. I was content just being in the background, at least that's what I kept telling myself, whenever I tried to be more than whatever life gave me I was knocked down and I was brutally afraid of that here because the risks were greater. What if I ended up being on Team 7 instead of Sakura? Well I would imagine that Sakura wouldn't become Tsunade's apprentice and the world sorta needed that. I sure as hell wasn't going to become that, I had no real interest in it. I doubt I would be able to face Orochimaru and take care of the boys like she had during the chunin exams, seriously she actually had more balls than people gave her credit for.

Would that mean that I would have to be the one to try and make Sasuke not leave the village and try to make Naruto and Sasuke see eye to eye? I hoped not, I prayed not because I couldn't imagine a future where the Konoha 9 and Team Gai didn't end up like how they did. I was not in the original plot and I was trying to keep it that way as much as I could. So TenTen had family and a last name? In the grand scheme of things it didn't matter much to the plot because TenTen's value to the plot was not her sister or her Grandfather but rather her skills.

Another part of me was so worried about how badly I'd embarrass myself if I ended up being in the spotlight, I mean look at what I did to poor Lee. And, ugh, I just couldn't imagine Kakashi as my sensei without laughing myself silly, or rather hysterically. Even know I felt the hysteria bubble up as I hurried my way home.

First things first, let's just pass the academy, yeah?

* * *

Okay so this is my new fic, it's been sitting on my google drive for a few months now and I have yet to stop doodling Rui on everything so yeah~!

Sorry if the pace seems rushed, I'm just super in love with Rui's character because I haven't yet really created any type of OC/SI who was such a serious little raincloud!

(1)Youtiao- _Youtiao, also known as the Chinese cruller, Chinese oil stick, Chinese doughnut, and fried breadstick, is a long golden-brown deep-fried strip of dough eaten in China and (by a variety of other names) in other East and Southeast Asian Cuisines. Conventionally, youtiao are lightly salted and made so they can be torn lengthwise in two. Youtiao are normally eaten at breakfast as an accompaniment for rice congee or soy milk._ (Via Wikipedia)

(2)Our little Gem- Rui means 'Gem life' in Japanese and 'Sharp intellect' in Chinese. I'm sort of playing off of TenTen's duel name meaning as well, and I've decided to make it a family trait that the Ueno's name their children oddly like this. The grandfather's name is Gen, which also has two different meanings in the two languages.

Ueno means 'Upper-field' by the way.


	2. Chapter 2

It was about a week after we graduated, everything went the same as far I could tell. Naruto took the scroll and all that. I hated seeing him so upset about not passing and dejected while everyone else was all happy and chatting with family, sitting on that swing.

But today here he was bright and bouncing as always, the only thing that changed from canon was that instead of getting into all that drama with Sasuke and the kiss and the girls he simply sat besides me, I merely raised my eyebrow at him curiously.

Naruto was already bouncing up and down talking a mile a minute about teams and I just smiled at him unsure about my own future. I had managed to stay off the radar but I got top kunoichi of the class, I think the Class Rookie spot was rigged at this point, but whatever. Anyways, I was worried because it was looking more and more like I was going to be put in Team 7.

"Ne, Rui-chan, are you alright? You look really pale!" Naruto said suddenly breaking me out of my thoughts and I gave him a worried smile, "Ah, I'm just worried about team placements. Knowing my luck I'd get a team I wouldn't work well with..." I said and Naruto looked at me in confusion and I rolled my eyes.

"Naruto, most of the class thinks I'm an antisocial know-it-all, and most of the girls in the class think this is somehow my master plan to woo Sasuke. I'm worried that I'll be placed on a team that hates me." I explained quietly, ignoring how my mind seemed to spin in a fast pace.

Naruto seemed to understand it, or wanted to make me think he did, either way it soon went quiet when Iruka came in and began handing out assignments. I began bouncing my knee up and down nervously, itching to just vibrate into nothingness, I'm almost 100 percent that whatever happened it would suck for me. I closed my eyes screwing up my face, probably showing more emotion now than I ever had in public.

"...Team 5 will be made up of Ami, Fuki, and Rui under Kurata Koto." Iruka said before continuing and I sighed because it wasn't team 7 until I remembered who else was on my 'team'.

Damnit, this really was going to suck!

About an hour later we were retrieved by our jounin sensei, a man of average height, dark hair, and bright golden eyes. He also had a stubbly beard at it looked familiar to me but I couldn't but help thinking that it wasn't a Naruto-verse thing.

Koto came off as bubbly and cheery but at the same time leaned back and not a stickler for all but the strongest laws and rules. He took us to a nearby training ground and had us sit down in a circle before he began to introduce himself.

"Hello, my name is Kurata Koto and I am your assigned jounin sensei! I picked you all out because I specialize in special assignments mainly around espionage and the like! You all had great scores in stealth and information retaining, and since you're all such little cute girls you can probably get away with a lot of spying just by acting lost and confused! Now, I'm going to tell you some things about myself, and then you'll tell me about yourselves!" He said excitedly while Ami and Fuki looked at him slightly coldly, I on the other hand was trying to place why he looked so familiar.

"I have a wife and she just recently gave birth to my beautiful baby girl, Airisu!" he suddenly said and in a flash had a whole stack of photos on display showing off his daughter and it clicked.

No, fucking, way. I found the Naruto-verse's Maes Hughes. I bit my tongue, the only things missing were his glasses and perhaps the uniform. He kept going on about his daughter and Fuki and Ami giggled and whispered under their breaths making fun of him. I frowned, Koto and Meas were awesome as far as I could tell, and Koto's Aura was nice too.

"So now how about you guys go and share things about yourselves!" he said snapping the two others from their chatting. He looked at Fuki first who gave him a sickeningly sweet smile borderline smirk.

"My name is Fuki and I like Sasuke-kun and my friends. I don't like boring know-it-alls who only train and study all of the time." she said and Ami shot me a nasty smirk, I merely rolled my eyes, such maturity.

Next came Ami, "I too like Sasuke-kun and my friends and also don't like boring know-it-alls, I also like to design outfits in my spare time. After all, I don't need to study or train all of the time." Ami finished smirking and eyeing me out of the corner of her eye while flipping a piece of her asymmetrical hair.

"I see..." Koto said before turning to look at me, "And what about you?"

"My name is Rui, Ueno Rui and I like my Nee-chan, my grandpapa and bread. I also like training and learning things in my spare time as well as collecting different types of teas and tea sets from all around the world. My dream is to become a splendid kunoichi and someone useful to Konoha." I paused before smiling sweetly at Koto, " My only dislikes are those who are cruel without reason, bullies, and shallow people."

Koto looked amused by my answer, it seemed he was not as blind to Ami and Fuki's behavior as they liked to believe. He gave me a quick wink while Ami and Fuki acted snootily like I wasn't calling them out on their behavior, and I continued to smile sweetly at him.

"Well now that that's done and over with, we're ready to move on to part two of the test!" Koto said suddenly, slapping his knees as he stood up from the ground. Ami and Fuki looked confused, and I stood up following sensei's lead.

"Test?" Ami said, as she and Fuki finally got their asses up off the ground. Koto nodded, "Yeah, you see, you may have graduated from the academy but there's another test, this one roots out who deserves to be genin and who doesn't! Each sensei tests in different ways and about only 33% ever pass!" he said cheerfully like this was no big deal, well to me it wasn't. I had known already thanks to both my past life knowledge and TenTen's retelling of her team's tale.

"So what do we have to do, Koto-Sensei?" I asked looking up at him ready for the challenge. I would work with these two air heads if I had to, I simply hoped that they wouldn't make a huge deal about having to work with the know-it-all.

"Well, you all will be given a piece of a map that will lead you all to one of your guys' treasured belongings. Note that you don't get all pieces of map right away and that you have to solve some challenges to get them all. First one to come to me with their item gets a genin spot right away, the last two will have to battle it out!" he said and my eye twitched.

"So this a sort of glorified treasure hunt?" I asked as Koto nodded excitedly, "You got it right in one, Rui-chan! Just what I would expect from the Top Kunoichi!" he said and gave me a pat on my head. Ami and Fuki looked at me in rage brought forth by their jealousy. Inwardly I giggled.

"To make things a bit easier for you all, each of you have a color for your maps! Ami you're purple, here you go!" Koto said handing Ami a piece of parchment type paper that was a light purple and darker purple ink on it showing it as part of a map.

"Fuki your's is green!" he said like she had won some amazing and special prize, she huffed in response.

"And Rui, your's is yellow!" He said and handed me my piece, and I studied it intently only for it to show a dotted line and maybe some other markings and the directional rose in the corner.

"Now, the riddles are located on the back of your map and each will lead you to the next piece of your map and then that piece will lead you to the next and I think you get it. Each map has 8 pieces, and you have until sundown to find your item! Meet me at my home just off of main street! You can't miss it! Oh yeah, and if you fail to find your item I get to keep it! Later, girls!" and with that Koto disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Ami and Fuki looked at each other, "So, we just find the things?"

"Yes." I replied knowing very well that neither one were talking to me.

"Argh! Shut up, Ueno! Kami, I wonder what your item is, some dumb book?" Ami sneered at me and I looked at her affronted.

"You don't seriously think that I value such materialistic things, do you? I'm not like you after all." I said before turning to look at my map.

'First things first, just what has been taken from me?' I asked myself before taking off leaping towards my home, ignoring Ami and Fuki who just seemed to fume and bitch to each other about me. I paused on top of a rooftop making sure my ribbon was still in my hair, and yep, it was. No genjutsu trick, it felt the same and smelt the same. Okay, so time to keep going onwards then.

I still couldn't think of what could've been taken, I wasn't one to treasure items unless they meant something to me. My family, and although TenTen was in the village and so was the rest of her team I thought it would be kind of too out of reach for them to be taken and hidden in sensei's house. I doubt that my grandpapa would agree with doing this either, he had a business to run after all!

I leapt into the bakery scaring my grandfather slightly and he turned to look at me, "Where's the fire, Gem?" he asked and I scrunched up my face letting my senses stretch out a bit.

"Taking a test and my sensei took something of value from me, but I think figuring out just what it is first might help me." I said and he cocked his head at me and rubbed his chin, despite his hands being covered in flour.

"Hmmm, might as well check up stairs. Your sister should be out there with her team doing some training I think?" he said and I was already heading up the stairs to our home.

I began searching without moving anything, looking all over the room opening my senses which were acting a bit like a radar. I moved room to room until I found something missing.

It was of value and I have no idea how Koto knew, but apparently he did even though I usually hid it so well.

The item in question was a picture of my parents, my sister, my Grandfather and myself as a tiny baby, and was the only one I had of them. Most had been destroyed by the Kyuubi's attack, which had also taken my parents. I furrowed my brow.

I shakily turned over the map and saw the writing there in a deep orange ink.

'Where those of our past greatness are captured for all eternity, head to two'

It took me a few seconds but I got it, the second Hokage's carved head.

I took a deep breath, my instincts were telling me that this wasn't right, I kept going over the prompt.

I probably sat there for 15 minutes before I suddenly got it and I smiled, this was tricky but if I had figured this out, it would save a lot of time. I got up turning on my heel and jumping from my window landing on the ground and running towards my destination.

'I'll show you Koto-sensei!'

I ran until I came to the residential district just off of main street and began searching for Koto's house.

'You can't miss it, my arse. Let's see, what would he use to show us?' I thought and after 10 minutes I began to panic, maybe I wasn't as clever as I had thought I was, maybe there was some sort of symbol on one of the other pieces? Until something caught my eye, A small banner with our colors on it, Ami's purple, Fuki's green and my own golden yellow.

I ran up to the front door and began to knock on the door, this was a bit of a gamble but I hoped that I had seen 'underneath the underneath' properly, I was usually pretty good at solving things like this but ninja were a lot more tricky than I was used to.

The door opened revealing a beautiful blonde woman with short cut hair and bright green eyes, she smiled at me.

"I'm guessing that you're one of Koto's students?" she said and I nodded fanatically. She continued to smile at me sweetly before ushering me into her home and guiding me to a room, a room that held Koto-sensei and his adorable baby girl Airisu. He was playing with her and he shot me a grin, "Look Airisu-chan, my student has come to say 'Hi!'" he said and Airisu gurgled. I cautiously came over and sat down next to Koto, looking at Airisu and smiling; babies and young children were so cute! And they always liked me.

"I see that you figured it out, I thought you would, Rui-chan. Your academy scores aside I just knew you had the right gut instincts, and that you're extremely clever. You know, Gai talks about you sometimes, seems to think you'll make a 'splendid and youthful kunoichi' before you know it." Koto said looking down at Airisu.

"Gai-sensei is way too flattering." I blushed and mumbled. I mean yeah I wanted to be awesome, not Naruto plotline awesome but awesome and live a fulfilled life. It was one of things I regretted in my past life, I always felt like I was meant to die a hero's death.

Must be why I was sent here of all places. All of the powerful beings in the cosmos must have a sense of humour, God and Death especially.

"Well you passed my test with flying colors, not even I expected you to spend under an hour on this. Tell me your thought process..."

And so I told him, how I thought it might be best to find out what was taken, depending on what was either needed to hide it, like say if it was something big it was probably in an area would it would fit. But then I said that I had remembered his wording, 'Each map has 8 pieces, and you have until sundown to find your item!' and 'Oh yeah, and if you fail to find your item I get to keep it!' I figured that chances were he'd have the item and that the map was merely a goose chase, the map would of course lead to his house...Eventually.

After that I spent time hanging out with sensei's family, not at all worried about how Ami and Fuki were doing. It seems that Koto was only going to take in one student, or if I wanted, he could take me to another jounin waiting in the wings or something, either way I passed. Ami and Fuki had pretty much failed the moment he saw them making fun of me, and while he wasn't testing us on our teamwork he was disappointed by the snubbing they had done to me. He had looked at my academy notes and found that while I wasn't a social butterfly I was good at teamwork; The others, not so much... And Koto didn't really think they would be able to carry the mantle of Konoha Ninja correctly. After all, who would you rather trust to have your back, two petty fan-girls, or someone who took the job seriously?

Shorter chapter because I have a lot of explanation about Rui and stuff~

Rui was able to beat Ino and Sakura in both of their 'areas of expertise' (Taijutsu for Ino and Book Work for Sakura) due only to hard work. She only managed to scrape by with it mainly because I'd like to think that in a ninja village chunin teachers would be able to spot those who could blend the different 'disciplines' like a true ninja.

Rui's character is pretty much like, 'I have piss poor luck, but I won't let that get in the way of my survival'. She takes her ninja-career very seriously, this is mainly brought on by the fact that she has knowledge of the future and she's mentally 'older' than her peers. Of course, that doesn't mean she still won't be caught off guard or that she has nothing else to learn. Her former world is pretty much our world, and since our culture is focused on something completely different from the warrior/fighting culture of the Naruto World, she still has a far way to go as far as thinking like a true ninja.

I'm trying to make her not Mary-Sue-ish, her only true boost, besides the obvious past life thing, is her odd sensing abilities. In future chapters this will of course be expanded upon, but for the most part Rui is stubborn and hardworking. She knows that she comes from a civilian background and it's at least twice as hard to make it as a fully fledge and successful ninja than if she were from a clan background. She also has no real friends at this point in her life, and even though she was able to have lots of friends in her past life, some parts of her personality have changed in the reincarnation process. This basically means she falls somewhere between Sai's non-ability to understand emotions and Neji's want for friends (at this point in time). She's very independent, so as long as she has access to her Grandfather and her sister she's pretty much fine. That's not to say that she's not a good person at teamwork though and she'll work with any loyal leaf nin, she's focused on just being useful and doing her job like a good little drone.

I also tried to be more original in my 'Test' =w=;;; I also think that even though Konoha isn't currently under threat of war they wouldn't pass up as many as 66% of all 'graduates'. In quite a few other fics I've seen scenarios where those who fail either go back to the Academy for a 'Boot camp' sort of thing, and others go back to being civilians or career genin. In my version this happens, but quite a few graduates are chosen for the 'Tokubetsu Jounin/Specialty' track and taken on as apprentices in certain fields. Examples of this are med-nins, T&I, 'Paperwork Nins', Code workers, and the like. Rui is on track for the Information/Espionage track, possibly Anbu track if she shows a lot of promise in the future.

On a completely other note, Koto is basically Hughes because why not?! I love that man and I still feel upset about his death from FMA! There is going to be a few other kind of homage to other series in this mainly because I'm a huge sap and also for ease of knowledge. I'd like to think that every universe ever written or thought up of exists and death and God like to mess up the stories for souls.

I'd also like to hear feedback to make sure I keep on track, since I tend to ramble and the only one to give me feedback is someone who is way too nice and funny to give me any serious criticism, lol!


	3. Chapter 3

About a month passed before Koto took me to see his friend, a tokubetsu-jounin friend of his who was willing to teach me his unique fighting style.

His name was Kagami Hisato and excelled in his taijutsu and had earned his rank due to his 'unique fighting style'. It seemed to be combo of Jeet Kune Do and some kind of boxing style with kicks involved(1). His way of fighting wasn't about muscles or force, but rather about speedy strikes and precision, as well as 'moving like water'. It took me quite a while to even get the 'basics' down and I usually ended up on my butt more often than not. Kagami-sensei never went easy on me stating that my enemies wouldn't either, basically the opposite of what Koto-sensei thought.

So, yes, I technically had two sensei's, one for teaching me information gathering and espionage, the other combat. It was draining but I kept at it. I wanted to be useful and live this life to it's fullest,this also meant I had less time to 'make friends'. I know that my sister and grandfather are worried about me because of it, but I don't really care enough to fix it myself, I wasn't a social person regardless.

Koto-sensei usually took me to do a multitude of D-rank missions just to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything, especially the Tora missions although it was easy for me since cats liked me. Especially if I had mint in my pocket, any kind really, not just Catnip. Tora was partial to peppermint actually...

Kagami-sensei usually only trained me, and before I knew it I was able to hold my own against him for a least a few minutes, or whatever was enough for Kagami to give me some praise before vanishing off to wherever he goes off to. He's a bit of a distant person, not that I have the right to complain seeing as I can be quite distant as well. Still, sometimes I think the true reason Koto-sensei introduced me to Kagami was because he felt that our temperaments and personalities were similar.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

It isn't about two weeks after I've gotten praise from Kagami-sensei that I run into Naruto, or rather, Naruto and the Konohamaru-Gang. I swallowed nervously as Naruto spots me a beckons me over, and I grudgingly go over to him. Team 7 had returned about a week from their first C-rank mission, the Mission in the Land of Waves, and Naruto was excited to tell someone about it of course.

"Hey, Rui-chan!" Naruto yelled as I made my way over to him and his 'ducklings'.

"H-Hello, Naruto-san." I replied back hesitantly He beamed at me and began chattering about how he'd been doing, and what happened to his pink haired teammate during the mission. In an odd chain of events Sakura was in the hospital due to injuries that she had received during said mission. Apparently, during the bridges construction there had been some sort of mechanical accident that had caused a pile of heavy beams to nearly kill a worker. Sakura had intervened at the last second but ended up with getting only partially crushed by the brunt of it.

"Hey, Boss, who's this? I thought you said your friend was in the hospital?" Konohamaru asked and Naruto turned to yell at him that he had more than just one friend. I smiled slightly, they were sorta adorable I'll admit, even if it could give me a headache.

"Then _who_ exactly are _you_?" The brown haired boy asked, chest puffed in pride and slight arrogance, he _was_ the Third's grandson after all...

"Ueno Rui, I graduated with Naruto, and I'm being apprenticed by Kurata Koto and Hisato Kagami." I said plainly but politely. Konohamaru didn't look too impressed but Naruto did.

"Whoa! Apprentice! That must be so cool! I bet your teachers teach you awesome things! Kakashi sensei barely teaches us anything, and when he does it's like dumb water-walking or something! Hey, hey, do you know any cool Justu, Rui-chan?!" The blond asked me all hyper and excited, I chuckled nervously. I hadn't been taught any ninjutsu yet, or at least none that would keep his attention.

"Ah, well, no, not really. Koto-sensei has been teaching me the basics as well as intelligence gathering while Kagami-sensei has been teaching me his combat style..." I said and Naruto seemed to deflate a bit before he heard about the 'combat style' part.

"Oooooooh! That sounds so cool! Could we spar so I can see some of it?! Could you teach me?!" Naruto asked with stars in his eyes. I snorted.

"Maybe later. I just got done with Koto-sensei and Kagami-sensei's style is very special so you'd have to ask him...If you could find him that is." I said and giggled. Kagami was a hard man to find, even harder to catch, I should know since he made me play 'tag' with him to increase my speed and response time.

Naruto pouted before the Konohamaru-Gang pulled back his attention to themselves, and I was invited to join them. Or rather I was corralled into playing with them. I apparently still have a soft-spot little kids it seems.

After about half an hour I heard a small squawk and turned to see Konohamaru being held by none other than Kankuro no Subaku. I furrowed my brow and stalked over to him.

"Release that boy at once, Sand-nin!" I said keeping my tone even and professional, Naruto and the crew gave a few, "Yeah!"s beside me. Kankuro snorted and rolled his eyes at me.

"Oh yeah, and what's a leaf-runt like you gunna do, huh? Besides, little brat deserves to be hit! Running his mouth off!" The puppeteer replied and I gave him a nasty smirk in reply, "Because that's the _Hokage's __**grandson**_, you idiot!" I replied and Kankuro paled, I managed to finally notice Temari, who gave herself a very loud face palm.

Konohamaru was dropped quicker than a hot potato after that statement with Naruto luckily catching him just in time.

"That would've been messy, huh?" I said boredly, angry more at Kankuro for picking on a kid than for being from a foreign ninja village, "Probably would've caused quite some political trouble for our villages."

Kankuro sneered back me before I felt another presence show up, this one being a certain bloodlust filled tailed beast container. A chill made it's way up my spine, Gaara was no joke. His aura was very 'heavy' and 'smelled' of iron, I could also faintly 'see' Shukaku's odd skin pattern lurking underneath the boy's own skin like a bruise.

"I apologize for my brother's idiocy." was all he said, and I managed a nod while also shutting up Konohamaru and Naruto.

"That's fine, but if you're here for the chunin exams you should really know that any sort of fighting pre-exams are grounds for disqualification and it's quite a long walk back to Suna..." I said and Naruto looked at me confusedly.

"Chunin exams?" He asked while the sand trio seemed to withdraw from the area slowly.

"Yeah, the chunin exams are held by the ninja villages one every six month or so. This time they're to be held in Konoha. It's known as one of the more flashy ways to become a chunin, but it's also seen as a sort of 'war games' for the villages so that wars don't break out as often." I said making sure the sand sibs were out of my sight before turning to Naruto. "At least that's what I've read and been told."

Naruto looked amazed by my info and I snorted, "I read, a lot, so I also know somethings about this. There will probably be a lot more foreign nin coming in the next few weeks, so try to keep on your toes, alright? Tell that to everyone else too, and you, Konohamaru-sama, should be with a guard 24/7. In the past other villages have used this and other supposedly 'neutral' events as a chance to kidnap, take hostages, or even try to start wars with other villages.

"Hell, a few years back Cloud tried to kidnap a Hyuuga so that they could steal the bloodline. I don't know exactly what happened, but it didn't work in Cloud's favor." I said remembering both the incident from the manga and my own memories of this world.

"Hey, I wonder if I'll be able to get into the Chunin exams!" Naruto said, deftly changing the subject and I shrugged, "Usually a genin team's sensei will sign them up, and you're down by one, Naruto."

"Yeah! And, besides, Kakashi-sensei probably wouldn't put us in even if we weren't, damn it." He muttered and pouted; I gave him a small smile.

"It's not all bad, you're all still rookies so it'd probably be for the best. My sister's team is only now going to the exams this year." I said and balanced on the back of my heels.

"Huh, what about you, Rui-chan? You don't have a team either so how will you get to be chunin?" He asked, with a hint of concern. How sweet...

"Aaah, well, I could be placed on a team that's short a member, or simply do it the most common way; a field promotion." I replied looking down at my feet. I was hoping for a field type promotion and not a flashy, "Look at what I did in the exams!" type promotion. Mainly because I wanted to be known better for my skills than my _show_ of them. Not to mention I could pace myself rather than burn myself out too early on.

"Hey! What if you get put on our team and then we get to go to the exams together!" Naruto said and I shook my head, "Naw, it'd be best for y'all to wait for Sakura to come back. You guys have been a team for a while already."

"If you say so..." Naruto said, not fully convinced.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

The next day I went to Koto-sensei's home, ready to meet up for my lessons. I was greeted by Koto's wife again, and led to the living room only to pause slightly seeing a very familiar figure.

'And what the hell is he doing here?!' I thought making my way into the room. Koto beamed at me before motioning towards the familiar figure, "Rui-chan, I'd like you to meet Hatake Kakashi! He wants to put his team into the upcoming chunin exams, but he's down one kunoichi so I decided he could borrow mine!"

I shot them both a glare, "We're just rookies and I've never worked with any of them..." I said and Kakashi gave me an eye-smile.

"No worries, Rui-chan! You still have a week to prepare for the exams!"

And with that I was shanghaied into being Sakura's replacement in Team 7 for the Chunin Exams. _Oh joy_.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

Short chapter this time since I'm trying to rework some of the stuff I had already had written, mainly working on pace and for some reason Rui got really OOC. Also I have been hella busy with IRL nonsense, including doggy deaths, illness, and my extended family coming to visit! I've also hit a bit of a roadblock when it comes to the Chunin Exams arc because I personally found it to be annoying how dumb some of the character seemed to be despite being of a higher rank [*cough cough ANKO cough cough*] and all of the Sasuke-Orochimaru dramu. The only great parts were seeing more of Lee and Sakura's 'renewal', and since Sakura won't be in my version of the arc, urgh .

Don't worry though! Rui will not ever become a permanent member of team 7, ever. I mean it. She's going to be placed on her own rag tag team sometime during the timeskip just so y'all know but she probably won't be super close to them. Because Rui apparently does do meaningful relationships very often, lol

So I'm dreading on how to write the upcoming Orochimaru bizzness, I don't think Rui is anywhere near ready to confront him and I've played around with the idea that she would somehow stop the bite but now that I think about it the bite might be for the best

On another note, I've made a playlist for Rui on 8tracks called 'Rocky Roads' [Found on my profile] it currently only has, like, 15 racks because I'm too dumb to pick out more that I think fit Rui and her 'life' and not just my own favorite songs OTL;;

(1)'Jeet Kune Do and some kind of boxing style with kicks involved'- Jute Kune Do is a 'style' of fighting/philosophy created by Bruce Lee and is said to be 'the style without style' because it doesn't have stances and the like. The boxing style with kicks involved is basically French Boxing which unlike other style with kicking only allows full foot contact as opposed to like shin hits. To help you picture Kagami's fighting style watch some of how Cowboy Bebop's Spike Spiegel fights. I know for a fact that some of the moves have basically been traced from the Cowboy Bebop Movie into the Naruto anime for Neji but she's more boxer than palm strikes user [obviously]and she has a lot more dodging, contorting and kicking.

To make a larger difference between the Hyuuga style and Kagami's, the Hyuuga's tend to be in one stance and just sort of strike out always being the aggressor except for the rare case when they are forced to dodge. Kagami's style is more about moving like water and weaving in and out to both strike out and pretty much 'roll with it', not to mention I don't think I've ever actually seen a canon Hyuuga fight where they actually use kicks? I could be wrong but *shrugs*

DEAR LORD I HOPE THE FORMATTING DOESN'T MESS UP AGAIN! ;A;


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